Newspapers over the last few months have provided an abundance of articles about creation and evolution for one obvious reason. The decision by the Kansas School Board to not approve the mandatory teaching of Darwinian evolution has brought charges and countercharges which have been played out in articles, columns, and letters to the editor. The amount of misinformation (from both sides) has been overwhelming.
Jonathan Wells, molecular biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, is especially riled at one common accusation: that creationists are winning battles because they are better funded than evolutionists. Consider the September 21 article by John Hildebrand in the New York Newsday: "Creationist forces are active, too, and better financed than the evolutionists."
Professor Wells decided to test that conclusion. About a year and a half ago he wrote to NASA, NSF, NIH, and the Department of Energy on U.C. Berkeley stationery requesting details of how much public money the agency spends on research guided by the neo-Darwinian theory. When he totaled the amounts up, it easily exceeded $10 billion. By the way, two agencies telephoned him to ask him why he wanted to know this information!
Let me break $10 billion down. Each American taxpayer is paying $100 a year. Over the last decade you have spent $1000 to support research based upon neo-Darwinian assumptions.
Of course this doesn't even include indirect research at educational institutions, or the fact that your state and local taxes are used to purchase billions of dollars worth of textbooks and audio-visual material to teach neo-Darwinian evolution. And don't forget the salaries of teachers who are only allowed to teach neo-Darwinian evolution in the classroom.
So just remember some of those facts the next time you hear an evolutionist complain that they are out-financed by those who believe in creation or intelligent design.
I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.